Despite new state law lifting face-covering mandate, Fayette schools stick with masks

Fayette County Public Schools’ teachers, staff, students, and visitors will have to continue wearing masks indoors amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.

With a 5-0 vote, the school board made the decision, which also includes masks on buses, at a meeting Monday night. The board’s mask vote was necessary because the Republican-controlled Kentucky General Assembly approved Senate Bill 1, eliminating the statewide mask mandate in K-12 schools.

The Fayette mask requirement — in place for the last year — is in line with federal recommendations, said Superintendent Demetrus Liggins.

The requirement is in effect regardless of vaccination status unless students have an exemption.

Students can lower their masks outside or when eating and drinking.

“Thank you for your support as we lead through challenging times, “ Liggins told the board.

Gov. Andy Beshear said at a Monday news conference that there were 10,000 new COVID cases confirmed since Saturday and that COVID was as bad as it had ever been in Kentucky.

Beshear, a Democrat, vetoed Senate Bill 1, but the legislature overrode his decision. The bill carried an emergency clause, which means it took effect immediately. Beshear said Monday that he does not foresee a legal challenge to the new law.

Like Fayette, individual districts must decide whether face coverings are required.

As of Monday afternoon, 33 percent of the state’s 171 school districts had adopted mask mandates, the Kentucky School Boards Association said.

The American Civil Liberties Union Kentucky and the Children’s Law Center wrote to Kentucky school boards and superintendents telling them they had obligations under federal law and the Kentucky Constitution.

“As long as there are students in your school district who have higher risk for severe illness or even death due to COVID 19, any policy that differs from the existing mask mandate would effectively exclude those students from public schools, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act,” said a letter signed by Corey Shapiro, legal director of the ACLU in Kentucky.

As of Monday, there were 11 new student cases of COVID-19 and one new staff case in Fayette schools. There were 1,220 students and one staff member in quarantine, according to the district COVID-19 dashboard.

The law also allows school districts to temporarily assign students at a school, grade, classroom, or group level to remote instruction as a result of significant absences of students or staff due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The school board gave Liggins the sole discretion to temporarily assign students to remote instruction for a period no longer than necessary to alleviate absences.

“We believe this flexibility would be a great help for our school district,” said Liggins.

The remote instruction would be separate from the state’s non-traditional instruction or NTI learning-from-home program that students used in the last 15 months when in-person classes were shut down districtwide.

This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 7:02 PM.